St. Francis staff responds to fire by planning for the
future
A week after a predawn fire reduced one of the area’s most
historic buildings to ashes, people who loved St. Francis Retreat
recalled the rich history of the place and mulled its future.
St. Francis staff responds to fire by planning for the future
A week after a predawn fire reduced one of the area’s most historic buildings to ashes, people who loved St. Francis Retreat recalled the rich history of the place and mulled its future.
It was a sanctuary to many. The Rev. Patrick Dooling of Santa Cruz worked at St. Francis helping with engagement encounters and giving retreats.
“The building that burned down was particularly wonderful. It offered a breezy enclosed veranda, spacious upper room for meetings and was built in a Victorian style. It was home to many great Franciscans too numerous to mention,” Dooling said.
The St. Francis Retreat Center is a multi-use facility owned and operated by the Franciscan Friars of California. Their purpose is to offer a place of spiritual growth, healing and renewal, both personal and communal.
However, the mansion set in a wooded canyon outside San Juan Bautista was not always a retreat center.
Originally, San Justo Rancho was one of three ranches attached to San Juan Bautista. It covered 28,000 acres. After the decree of secularization in 1832, when the mission lands and cattle were confiscated, General Jose Castro obtained San Justo Rancho from the Mexican Government.
Francisco P. Pacheco bought the rancho from Castro for the sum of $1,400. In October 1855 Pacheco sold the rancho to Flint, Bixby and Co. for $25,000. Flint Bixby and Co., in turn sold about 21,000 acres to Colonel Hollister. By this time the Rancho had grown to about 35,000 acres.
Flint Bixby and Co. consisted of two brothers, Dr. Thomas Flint and Benjamin Flint and a cousin by the name of Llewellyn Bixby. At one time the company owned San Justo Rancho property in the vicinity of Bakersfield and all of what is now Long Beach and Signal Hill.
For 40 years Rancho San Justo was the headquarters for Flint, Bixby and Co. From 1869 to 1877 the partnership operated the Coast Line Stage Company, which ran from San Jose to San Diego.
The ranch house that was to become St. Francis Retreat was framed in local redwood, but the millwork was constructed of lumber shipped around the Cape Horn in sailing ships. The ranch house was finished in 1863, to accommodate three families. There were three apartments, each with a sitting room, bedroom, bath (after 1870), a common parlor, large office, dining room, and kitchen, together with numerous guest rooms in the upper story. Each wife took charge of the housekeeping for a month.
Inevitably, the communal plan could not but fail to be altogether ideal. That communal life lasted 15 years, but the idea would later be revisited when a portion of the property was sold to the Franciscans.
After Bixby’s death in 1896, the Flint, Bixby Co. was dissolved and the properties separated. The Flints retained the lands in the north and the Bixby heirs, those to the south. Ultimately, the Ben Flint family took up a permanent residence in Oakland, leaving Thomas Flint’s family on Rancho San Justo.
Through a string of bad investments, the Flint property on the San Justo Rancho dwindled to 2,400 acres, which the Flints sold to Leila Butler Hedges in 1922 for $150,000.
It wasn’t until 1947 that the Franciscan Fathers of California bought 73 acres of the Rancho, including the large ranch house, cottages, maintenance man’s house and a smaller dwelling called The Casita for $100,000. Bud Holthouse bought the remaining 2,210 acres.
The fire early June 23 devastated the three-story 25,000 square-foot facility that housed the brothers. The fire left only five chimneys standing, which makes finding its cause more of an archaeological dig. Investigators are digging through three floors worth of rubble, said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Battalion Chief Curt Itson.
Fortunately the Department of Forestry had a tight handle on the fire since the dry grass and surrounding buildings could easily have spread the fire.
“If the fire had gotten to the grass we would probably still be fighting it,” Itson said. While the majority of firefighters fought the initial blaze, there was a secondary crew at the top of the ridgeline primed to attack if the fire spread.
The facility will continue to function and has its first post-fire retreat scheduled for Friday, July 7. Mission San Juan is helping to prepare meals until the kitchen can be restored.
Ed DeGroot, who manages business operations at the retreat, said that they have been awed by the response they’ve received from local contractors.
“Everyone seems intent on putting the facility back together the way it was before,” DeGroot said. “People have been extremely generous with donating thus far.”
For the time being the brothers have been moved to the Casita.
Everything is okay for the time being, according to Brother Kelly Cullen, one of the six Franciscans who live on the property. The fire resulted in only one minor injury.
The ranch house included the dining hall, offices, kitchen, and gift shop on the main floor and a conference room and the friary on the second floor. They’ve since moved the office to a trailer located on the property and are working on renting a tent to serve as the dining hall.
“Though we lost the ranch house we didn’t lose the guest house or any of the trees. It’s a miracle that the fire was contained to the main house,” Cullen said.
DeGroot said that Sylvester Ryan, bishop of the Monterey Catholic Diocese, had recently visited and would be writing a letter to all of the parishes on the Central Coast, asking for their support in bringing back the retreat center.
Anyone interested in donating to the retreat center can send checks made out to Bring Back Saint Francis to P.O. Box 970 San Juan Bautista, CA 95045.
